


an overture bold and beyond

by haloud



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fix-It, Friendship, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Mentioned Michael Guerin/Maria Deluca, Not Quite Getting Back Together, RNM 2x10 Fix-It Fic, mentioned Alex Manes/Forrest Long
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:35:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28056228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haloud/pseuds/haloud
Summary: Jesse is dead, and Alex is left standing in the whirlwind of thoughts and emotions left behind by the events of CrashCon and the days leading up to it. With the dust settled, Alex and Michael pick through the debris--they've argued many times before, but the last one, in Michael's workshop, lingers over them, demanding...something, demanding to be seen, to be spoken, to be soothed. Through three conversations, they search for an understanding they've never found before, one that brings them closer together.
Relationships: Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Comments: 46
Kudos: 97
Collections: Roswell New Mexico Big Bang 2020





	1. Chapter 1

The shed is as it always was and at the same time something else entirely. Small and dusty, smelling of wood, at night it would throw weird, spiked shadows from the tools and trophies adorning the walls, but during the day the light is pale yellow and pleasant against the pine. Ten years of light and absence have faded the posters that still shroud the walls. The floor is clean and swept and no amount of scalded memory could make Alex recall exactly where the blood used to be.

Dad is dead, and that means there is a life’s worth of unloading and sorting and dispersing to do of the things he possessed and left a mark on, and Greg has done enough, which means it falls to Alex. And it’s only fitting that the shed go first.

Still, where to begin? Should he get a dumpster for the antlers or a box to collect the tools for donation? Should he be cold and unfeeling, or should he pore over the cracks of his soul and salvage some sentimentality, some silver lining for the toolbox that built his treehouse, or the low bench that served as his bed on the safe and hidden nights, or.

For so long, this tiny, old, unused building loomed so large in his mind it blotted out any light that could shine on anything else. And then, through sheer stubbornness, he told himself it was just a building with such intensity that now, here, with the boogeyman six feet deep for good, it’s shocking all over again to find out that he was right.

It’s just a building. There are cobwebs so thick one corner is entirely grayish-white. The windows are grimy; the floorboards creak. Alex stands in the middle with his hands in his pockets. Somehow, he always thought there would be more screaming, like the soft and sweet-smelling pine might have captured the echo. It’s almost as unsettling as seeing a ghost, to stand at the center of his nightmares and not be haunted at all.

Greg would have come out here with him if he’d asked—but he didn’t ask. Greg would have hovered, looked at him all full of concern, like he thought Alex was being some sort of martyr for tackling this alone. Hell, maybe Alex thought that too, just a bit. Maybe that’s why it’s so bizarre to stand here and be...fine.

He’s fine. He’s too fine. He’s so weirdly, blissfully, mind-numbingly fine. 

No grief. No celebration. Just a fineness so complete and immaculate it could be mistaken for emptiness if his head were a little clearer. 

Alex takes in a deep, woodsy breath and blows it out slowly, making dust motes scatter and dance.

He left the door open intentionally, to hear if Greg shouted for him, for a quick escape, just in case, for a breath of fresh air. When a shadow falls across it Alex freezes, braces for impact, until he jerks his head up and sees the reason.

“Hey,” Michael says. A smile flickers across his face and then it’s gone, and Alex breathes through the blow of it.

“Hey.”

A beat passes. Alex chews on the inside of his cheek. They’ve been alone together once since their fight, and that was a hostage situation.

“Maria made me bring food over. I gave it to Gregory. Seems to be holding up okay.”

Was that true? That Maria made him? Or was it a cover, a thin, defensive veneer protecting him from—well, if he was really just here on an errand of respectability at the behest of someone more respectable, he could have—it would have been easy, the easiest thing in the world, to leave the food and slip back out without Alex ever having even known he was there.

Yet here he is, having sought Alex out. Should Alex let himself hope that this means something, that everything they were building, all closeness and understanding, wasn’t set aflame and burned to ashes in a furious, impulsive whirlwind?

He’s here. It’s something.

Alex has been practicing, since that last night they were alone together, since the bunker. He had a lot of time to think and could only hum the melody he found for his song so many times. So he’s been practicing what he’d say next time he saw Michael, what he’d say to make it right. To stretch out an open hand and not snatch it back, to allow himself to be reached for and not snap at it, all teeth. It all feels like a ridiculous fantasy now, looking at Michael’s quiet, expressionless face. He’s never known what to say. Maybe he never will.

Clearing his throat, Alex says, “Yeah, he’s, uh, made his peace, I guess. Still, we’re keeping each other company for now. How’s Maria doing?”

“Hanging in there. If it wasn’t for Liz…” Michael swallows and glances away.

“Yeah,” Alex replies hoarsely. Yeah. If it wasn’t for Liz, Flint’s body count would be up by one, and it would be Alex’s fault. Should have secured him better. Should have made sure there wasn’t a second key. Should have warned Charlie instead of going out the back. Shouldn’t have been distracted by his father. Should do something to stop him from acting again. Disaster struck. Justice done. Should…

“Hey. Alex,” Michael says, and Alex snaps out of his head to see him hovering closer, concern all over his face.

“Just,” Alex waves his hand, waves him off. “Just thinking about where we’d be without Liz. Not a pretty picture.”

“Yeah.”

Michael retreats just a pace or two back to the door. For a moment, Alex jolts like he could stop him from leaving, but then Michael turns to talk again.

“And…how are you?”

“What?”

“I mean. I’m not sad the bastard’s dead, but.” Michael leans against the doorframe and crosses his arms. “I’m not gonna break out the champagne until I know it’s cool with you, I guess.”

“Ha. I…I think the feeling’s a little more ‘lazy Sunday’ than ‘wild party.’”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Like…I can breathe easier now. I’m not ready to _celebrate,_ I just want to drink it in, you know?”

“Sure. We can make it mimosas instead.”

At that, Alex laughs, a short and underused thing. He runs out of stamina quickly. Part of him aches to invite Michael in, to sit beside him on the bench and talk about all the things they aren’t saying. But how would Michael take that? Here, now? Alex needs more time to consider all the pieces on the board.

“And physically?” Michael steps back toward him, nearly pacing for the number of times he’s walked those three feet of floor. He touches his own forehead where Alex is cut in two jerky movements, one forward, one up. “No concussion or anything?”

Alex shakes his head. “Clean bill of health.”

“Good. That’s good.”

The awkwardness dances between them like the dust does, and Alex measures his breaths to keep calm. The light should make things easier; it couldn’t be more different from the dark underground of Michael’s workshop, but the tension between them is the same.

“You were right,” Alex blurts.

“I should go,” Michael blurts at the same time, and then the two of them are frozen again until Alex breaks the ice.

“No, don’t. Please. I didn’t get a chance to really say this when you found me, but I need to.”

Michael hesitates. Alex holds his breath. But then Michael sighs, shoulders lifting and falling, and nods.

Bracing himself, Alex continues.

“You were right.”

Michael makes another aborted noise of protest, but Alex barrels on.

“My father was lying and manipulating the way he always has, and I was so ready to think that he was defeated that I stopped trying to see through him. I wanted to be right so badly that I convinced myself I was, and I hurt you, and I could have hurt so many more people if Liz hadn’t been able to—if Isobel wasn’t there to hold off the fire—”

His voice falters and he closes his eyes, then forces them open. No hiding.

Michael works his jaw for a minute or so like he might respond, might get angry, but he takes so long to start talking Alex almost continues his speech.

But then Michael says, “You don’t have to do this. You’ve got no obligation to make me feel better or whatever. We both had a hand in making bombs this weekend, and I’m the one who knew what he was doing.”

“For me. You made a bomb for _me._ ”

Michael levels him with a golden look.

“Yeah. I did.”

“To save me. And maybe I didn’t know _what_ my father would use that piece for, but it was never going to be anything good. I just wanted answers, it didn’t have to be life or death. I’m—sorry.”

Alex hates apologies. Always has. After growing up the way he did, they always felt like a test, a test of his own commitment to forgiveness, to the value he chose for himself, the value his father never would have tried to beat into him. Or like an exertion of that same pressure on someone else, a desperate, pathetic cry for acceptance, for absolution.

And apologies were always particularly difficult between the two of them. Like each one granted might rip the bandage off all the old wounds that were never treated at all. But it was time, long past time, however, that they began to face these things.

Michael sucks in a breath and blows it back out in a huge sigh.

“Look,” he says. “It doesn’t make me feel any better to listen to you beat yourself up, okay? It’s not like you were entirely wrong; it’s not like I was making any strong effort to see things from your perspective. I…”

Michael flexes his left hand, then shoves it in his pocket, and another wave of guilt drags at Alex like quicksand. He can’t look away from that pocket even as Michael starts talking again.

“I still don’t understand. Why you would want him to change, why you would want anything from him after all this time and…everything. But there’s a lot I don’t get about family. And I probably would have told you giving up the piece was a bad idea no matter what, but I shouldn’t have to understand everything perfectly to listen when you’re telling me something’s important to you. I’ve been talking to Maria…” He pauses.

“It’s okay,” Alex prompts. It’s been months; there’s no point in pretending like what’s happening isn’t happening.

It would be easier if any of their endings _felt_ like the end. If he could shake off the certainty of old habit that time would pass and gravity would bring them back together. Michael and Maria have a good thing. Alex is taking steps, trying new things. And yet…

Neither of them would ever say it. They’ll both push it to the back of their minds, paper over longing with something new.

Yet.

Michael says, “Maria isn’t sure if suppressing her powers her entire life is what she wants. And I feel like an asshole because we both know that I’m asking her to do something I might not be able to do myself in her shoes. So I’m trying to understand where she’s coming from, no matter how much it hurts. I’m putting in the work. In every part of my life, okay?”

Alex nods, not knowing what to say.

And Michael carries on, like he’s trying to lighten the mood. “Anyway, I figure I might at least _try_ and earn those second chances you keep giving me, right?”

His tone is light and weightless, but it sends Alex’s heart plummeting into his stomach.

“What does that mean?” He asks, even though he already knows.

Michael shrugs. “Look, I should really get back to the hospital. Text me if anything comes up, okay?”

“Michael!”

“What, Alex?”

His voice spikes, then his lips press together in a harsh line, but Alex doesn’t wait for any attempt at an apology. No amount of yelling ever made him scared of Michael.

“For what it’s worth,” he said, “And it may be out of line for me to say this outright. But. You’re nothing like my father. Never have been. Giving you second chances—I mean, letting anyone make mistakes and work past them—it’s nothing you have to _earn_ any more than, I mean, I have to earn them, which isn’t to say I don’t know I have things to work on—”

“Alex, stop.”

Michael mercy-kills his rambling, and Alex inhales deeply and bobs his head once in a nod, and Michael drops his eyes to the floor.

“Gonna tell you something I’ve never said to someone who wasn’t comatose, so, uh. Be honored, or something.”

Alex nods to tell him to go on, even if Michael can’t see it.

“Look, I know you know what it’s like to grow up under shitty circumstances, so I won’t waste your time getting into it, but. Growin’ up, and then even when I was older, in high school and after, all my relationships had always been…transactional. Except you never saw the price tag and you just had to guess.”

A soft noise escapes Alex’s mouth, and Michael glances up then lets his eyes slide away again. Alex doesn’t say a word to interrupt him. Alex is tense with a strange mix, gratitude and regret at how little he knew, how little he still knows, about how Michael the boy makes up Michael the man, and how little Michael knows in return. How much he still has to learn. 

All he wants is for them to be in each other’s lives to keep that learning going. But how to say that in a way that isn’t begging Michael to be pinned down by him? 

Michael continues, “That’s why I didn’t believe you at first when you said people could just be nice for no reason. You were the first person who showed me there was another way, and then _after_ you, I…stopped believing in it again. Partially ‘cause I knew I’d fucked up with you, so I didn’t deserve you anymore. That’s a kid’s way of thinking at it, but yeah. With Max and Iz, with Sanders, with Maria, and yeah, with you, trading favors is what I default to, and I’m trying to stop thinkin’ of it like that. I am. But trying to earn things, people, second chances...it’s the kind of habit that’s stubborn to break.”

“I’m trying, too.” Alex measures his breath again and wonders if Michael can tell he’s doing it, how obvious he is. Does he owe Michael at least as much vulnerability and courage as that took, or is that transactional thinking too? “I’m trying to remember that my morality isn’t always universal. I thought I was doing what was right, and in some ways I was, but I was acting in a world where everyone thinks exactly like myself, and that’s just not the real one.”

Michael stands up a little, then. His eyes sharpen. Alex doesn’t know what he’s going to say, so he keeps talking.

“I subsumed my moral compass in work, in _mission_ for so long, that the second I started recapturing it…I lost sight of so many other things.”

“No. No, Alex,” Michael says firmly. Outside, the sun is beginning to set, the light deepening, the blurriness of early dusk. It smudges Michael’s edges; it softens him. It’s reminiscent of how he looks at dawn, a sight Alex may never see again, and his chest aches. And he aches for the fine, furious tremble, the certainty in that fixed jaw.

“Yes,” Alex disagrees. “Your faith in me is…” So many words are so loaded. Unearned? Undeserved? “It’s, um, an honor. But…I think I know who I am now. And I’m learning more every day.”

He winces as his own cheesiness, but Michael just softens, slouching back against the door, a flicker of a smile on his face.

The light is truly dying, now, and Alex looks around the shed. He didn’t get anything done he intended to tonight, but it can wait for another day.

He looks back at Michael and asks, “Is it hard for you? Being here again. I should have asked earlier, I…”

His voice dies off as Michael takes a step inside, looking all around himself before his eyes settle on Alex again. He’d stayed so close to the doorway and the open air the whole time they were talking. Inside, with the broad shoulders and strong hands that had been budding and awkward on his seventeen year old self, he takes up so much room there’s none left for the last of the ghosts.

“I’m okay,” Michael says. “He’s gone. Never gonna hurt me again. Never gonna hurt _you_ again.”

“I know it’s just a building, but it seems like it _should_ be more. It was the only place I felt safe, and then in one moment he tore that away. It’s hard to process that someone like that is just…gone. You know he used to tell us all about how his grandfather built this place with his own two hands? I just…”

Michael looks at him, then, and it’s the same like the shed is the same. Ten years of safety, ten years of hiding and neglect. He looks at him like he always has, the careful, creative study of men who named constellations.

He has a hammer in his hands. He holds it out to Alex handle-first.

“Yeah. This place sucks.”


	2. Chapter 2

Michael looks like shit. His eyes are ringed with purple shadows, both from sitting by Maria’s bed and from the sleepless nights present and future, his hair rough from where he’s been running his hands through it. Isobel rests a hand in the crook of his arm, close enough to him that he can physically feel her comfort. If it were Alex, he’d chafe at the pity, but at the same time he’d do anything to be in Isobel’s place, to be allowed that closeness, to be that part of Michael’s life where he _knew_ how to provide any comfort but silent presence.

Isobel, however, doesn’t stick around long after they read Tripp’s journal, leaving them with a tousle of Michael’s hair. They’re left to the bustle of a busy diner, but the world seems to shrink all the same. Alex fiddles with the loose vinyl strings at the edge of the booth and searches for the right thing to say.

“So do you think they were? Cosmic?” He asks, watching the cover of the journal like it could tell him anything more than it already has.

“Does it matter? They’re both dead.”

“I. Yeah. They are,” Alex says, then leans back in the booth and lets out a carefully measured sigh, working his fingertips into the muscle of his right thigh, hoping to ease the persistent ache.

His head hurts, too, and he closes his eyes to give himself a break from the pressure and strain behind them. It blots out the journal in front of him. It blots out Michael’s weary, troubled face; it blots out his strong, whole hands folded on the table.

Tripp must have closed his eyes too. For decades, as the woman he loved was tortured and imprisoned and experimented on and left to die, to die in front of her son’s screaming eyes as Alex held him back from joining her.

When he opens his eyes again, he almost expects Michael to be gone, but he isn’t.

“How are you holding up?” Alex asks, tentatively. His hand inches across the tabletop like he might take Michael’s, soothe him where he’s begun picking at the skin around his nails, but he forces it back before Michael even notices his approach.

“Fine. I’m…ha.” Michael shakes his head. “Gotta be fine, right? Been here before.”

“Michael…”

“It’s true.”

“I know.”

Alex doesn’t apologize. It wouldn’t mean anything anyway, not here and now with all that’s gone between them. Michael’s eyes flicker up to him as if checking his reaction; his shoulders curl inward, making himself small.

“Don’t know why I thought this time would be different. But now I know, I guess. Common denominator. Should’ve already known, but I’m a dumbass like that.”

“No, you’re not, you’re—”

Michael ruthlessly cuts him off. “Shouldn’t you be asking how Maria is, anyway? I thought you were her friend.”

Alex blinks at him, cocks his head. But it doesn’t take a genius, or an expert in Michael Guerin, to see that for the deflection that it is.

He _has_ been to the hospital to see Maria, plenty of times. It’s basically only hospitalization that’s kept him from bringing it up, from asking what she’s _thinking._ Michael and he are here, now, only feet between them once again like the feet between them in the tiny shed as they tore it down around them. No closer. Alex wants to get closer, but denial is the reliable companion comfort is not. So Alex focuses on his body and filling it, staying within it, staying present, while Michael bleeds the love of two people and ten years and one into the space between them, walking wounded.

“I am, but I’m your friend too. And to hear her tell it, _she’s_ the one who broke up with _you._ So I think my priorities are okay for now.”

“Oh, we’re friends now, are we?”

That one hurts, but Alex just shrugs. It’s true that _friends_ might not be the right word for what they are to each other. What they are has to be a word that doesn’t quite exist, at least not in the only language either of them knows how to speak. If Alex lingers too long on the potential of the languages either of them could know if it weren’t for the confluence of violence and neglect, he would be lost.

Michael flattens his palms and leans over. “Nothing to say? Really?”

Alex replies, “I don’t want to fight again.”

“Why?” Michael snaps. “Because you don’t want anything from me right now?”

At that, Alex can’t help but flinch, muscles locked up and frozen like a wolf inches from the teeth of a trap, and Michael flinches as well.

“I—I didn’t mean that. I—” Michael shakes his head. His face twists into something awful, something grieving, something inward. He rocks back, muted colors all but disappearing against the bright vinyl cushion behind him. God, Alex just wants to touch him. A hand on his shoulder, a hand on his hand. It’s the only way they’ve ever been able to communicate. But just because it’s familiar doesn’t mean it’s enough.

“No, you’re right,” Alex reassures. “You’re right. In your lab, I was wrong to come at you like that, and not just that, I was completely out of line not taking no for an answer—”

“No, Alex, no. You might have been wrong about your father changing, but we already talked about this, and I should—I should be able to _control_ myself by now.”

A prickle of unease trickles cold across the back of Alex’s neck. He lowers his voice, though it’s probably too late to prevent any eavesdropping. “What do you mean? Control yourself? Michael, you’re one of the most controlled people I know. I hate that you’ve had to be, but from what you’ve said, the control you have over your powers is amazing. Admirable.”

Michael barks out a dry laugh. “My powers. But it’s more than that, it’s always been. You know that better than anyone; you said it yourself, and you were right. Fucking wasting my life, right? And now here I am, wasting this chance to be there for you because I can’t just get over some hurt feelings.”

 _There_ for him. Michael is the one with the freshly broken heart, and he’s coming down on himself for not comforting Alex about the death of a great-uncle he never met, a great-uncle who abandoned his mother when she needed him. A great-uncle who should have died somewhere his brother never could have buried him on family land, should have died where he stood, like Alex would, like Alex would if it was Michael, if it was his—

Alex shakes his head frantically at that, at Michael’s cold shutting down of his own pain as just _hurt feelings._ What a screw-up. Michael isn’t perfect either, but Alex was never taught to pull punches, neither with fists nor with words.

“Michael, do you want to know why I said those things to you last time we fought?” 

“Because I wasn’t listening! ‘Cause you were pissed at me, I don’t know—”

“Because the change in my father had me confused and scared, and I was floundering for control.”

Michael opens his mouth, eyebrows scrunching together like he’s ready to argue, but Alex barrels on, staring straight into Michael’s eyes, knowing in his core that Michael isn’t going to look away from him.

“I thought that piece could be leveraged against him, and I didn’t care how you felt about it. I was hurting, and I took it out on you because you were an easy target. A safe target. I know in every part of my being that you would never hurt me.”

“No!” Michael protests.

“So when I tell you some garbage about you not deserving my faith in you, it’s gospel, but when I tell you I was wrong, it’s too much?” Alex demands.

To that, Michael has no answer. His mouth falls open, but nothing comes out, so it snaps shut again and he shakes his head.

“I’m the last person who’s gonna get on your case for not watching your mouth when you’re pissed,” he says with a casual shrug.

The ache in Alex’s thigh has radiated all the way up into his hips and lower back. In the kitchen, something clatters to the ground, the sound bringing the setting back in harsh relief, the very public diner loud and living all around them. Michael takes notice too, leaning back self-consciously, pulling his jacket tighter around himself.

Alex doesn’t know how to argue anymore; he knows he doesn’t want to. He can’t undo a lifetime of evidence built up inside Michael that he’s worthless with a few pretty words, no more than Michael could do for him over ten years. Trying is how they got here, at least in part. A good strategist knows when to retreat and try again another day.

Michael hasn’t said anything more, hasn’t probed farther for a fight, so sensing they’re done here, Alex takes the journal from the table to put it in his jacket pocket. But when his fingers touch leather something about the sensation makes him stop.

“Do…do you want to take it? I mean, he wrote about your mom, I…” He swallows, and continues, “I can’t give any part of her back to you, but if it gives you any comfort at all to read about her…”

“He was your ancestor. A Manes man. One who _wasn’t_ a bloodthirsty bag of dicks. You should give it back to Maria or keep it if she doesn’t want it,” Michael says gruffly.

Not bloodthirsty, perhaps, but Alex is less sure that he was any sort of hero or any sort of comfort to Alex now. Tripp’s dog tags hang around his neck, warmed to the temperature of his skin but still palpably _there_ , the feeling strange in a way his own never were. A reminder of what can happen if you believe in something but fail to act upon it.

“Yeah, it belongs to the Delucas. I wish Patricia had gotten to read it. I don’t know why Tripp didn’t...”

“And we never will. I’ll leave returning it to you. Can’t imagine Maria’s eager to see me at the moment.”

“You might be surprised.”

Michael just shrugs again and slides out of the booth, shoving his hands in his pockets when he stands.

Alex does a calculus at this point grown familiar, of whether he should nurse his drink for a little while longer so Michael doesn’t see how hard it is for him to stand, how painful to walk. So Michael doesn’t see him as weak. So they don’t have to have the awkward moment where Michael drives off while Alex calls an Uber or something because he walked here from the coffeeshop when Michael and Isobel texted him and now he can’t make the return trip. So—

“I got street parking,” Michael says.

“What?”

“My car’s right outside. Let me give you a lift home? We can stop by and grab whatever you need from your car and I’ll come back and get it, give it a tow or something.”

His eyes flick to Alex’s, briefly, then dance away. He doesn’t say it out loud, that he’s been able to notice that Alex is hurting.

“Or you can call Greg or Forrest or Kyle or something and I’ll get out of your hair,” he continues. “I know you don’t need my help—”

Alex grabs his wrist. He gets half cuff, half skin.

“Michael. I’d appreciate it, actually.”

The smile he gets is a half-bitten thing, brighter than the sun itself.

The sun sets in their eyes as they turn onto Alex’s street, and after ten minutes of silence, Michael speaks.

“I was out of line, spoiling for a fight with you back there. I won’t do it again.”

Alex doesn’t need to look at him to know that he’s golden, pure gold.

“We’re both on the remedial track for emotions and handling conflict. I _understand,_ Michael.” He curls his fingers around the truck’s bench seat like he did when he was seventeen and they couldn’t hold hands in public. He can almost imagine there are grooves there that fit just him. “It isn’t second chances, or third, or fourth. It’s proof we’re learning how to make mistakes without ending the whole world over it.”

If he stole some of that from his therapist, so be it. 

Michael’s voice is a little thick when he replies.

“That...that sounds pretty good to me.”

When they pull up to Alex’s driveway, he doesn’t get out right away, though he picks up his crutch and settles it over his lap, partially for a quick escape if he loses his nerve, partially for something to do with his hands.

Alex watches the lavender-gold sky and says, “It’s okay, you know. To be angry. I know I said the opposite, before, but…” he swallows harshly. “But it was hypocritical, and I regret it, and.” Horribly, tears prick at his eyes, but he has to get through this. “You deserve to feel safe. I don’t want to make you feel unsafe, ever. I walk around saying I’m doing the opposite like I deserve some kind of medal, but then I attack you, and I put you in danger—”

He chances a glance Michael’s way, only for the crack in his heart to widen at his hunched, defensive posture, curled around the steering wheel like it’s a shield to protect him where he’s most vulnerable.

Michael says, “You were the first person. The only person. Who ever made me feel safe. Who ever cared enough to make sure I had a place to go even if I didn’t trust you or if I pushed back on it. Who didn’t ask anything in return. We share a lot of the same pain from those days. But I don’t know if you know what that meant to me. I don’t know if you know how fucking hard it is for me to hear you talk like this now. I don’t know what you want from me.”

Horror creeps in at the edges of Alex’s vision. His lips are numb, but they still form, “Michael, you...you haven’t thought that you _owe_ me for that for all these years, right? Please, please tell me you haven’t…”

“No! God, no.”

Michael looks at him, the sunlight turning his eyes to honey. His mouth is chapped, but it just makes Alex want to feel that roughness with his thumb, cup his jaw and feel the stubble against his fingertips. 

Those instincts may never go away, but that doesn’t mean they have to suffer, even if they can never make being in love _good_ for the both of them. A life where their jagged edges align in the way only they can for each other, where they find that perfect angle where nothing, nothing hurts at all when they sit beside each other...that’s all they need. 

Michael turns away before he says anything more. The sun doesn’t turn, though, just limns his eyelashes in gold, casts his cheekbones in dramatic shadow, and Alex lets out a soft sigh from somewhere deep in his soul that Michael can be, from every angle, this unchanged.

“I don’t want to owe anyone anything. I’m tired of it,” Michael says, voice low and rough. “And I found out recently that some people in my life I thought I was racking up debt to I’d die without repaying had wiped my slate clean long ago. I can be wrong about stuff sometimes. I’m pretty smart, but I’m a big boy.” 

He flashes a quick morning-mist smile, eyes quirking sideways to look at Alex as he does it, and Alex smiles back, shoulders dropping as some tension leaves him. Michael’s eyes flick down and away before he speaks again.

“But where do we go from here? You and me, I mean. We keep tripping over ourselves to make up for the last fight out of too many to count in our lives, but there’s gonna be an after, too. What’s that look like for us?”

Alex rests his hand on the bench seat between them, just so it’s there, in case Michael wants to take it. And Michael glances down, and the apple of his throat bobs, but his hand doesn’t inch any closer.

That’s okay.

“Do you want to come inside?” Alex asks.

“Huh?”

“Friends hang out, right? No starting over. Let’s start from right here. Still got a guitar you can use, if you’re into that. Or we can crack open some beers and watch Netflix or something. Anything you want.”

Michael faces him for real for the first time, his generous mouth parted in shock, but then his face goes soft.

“Sure, yeah. I’d like that.”


	3. Chapter 3

Alex meets Michael’s eyes from across a crowded room. His cultural knowledge suffered significantly while he was active duty, but throughout his life he’s watched enough rom-coms curled up on the carpet with Liz, Rosa, and Maria to know how that’s supposed to feel, and to know now that the movies never did the feeling justice. Michael slowly removes his hat, and Alex’s heart swells so much he can hardly stand it.

And then Michael is gone, somewhere and sometime before Alex has lanced himself of all the words that have built up inside his skull, pounding against his temples, spilling out his eyes and ears and mouth. Only Isobel remains, and she gives him a sympathetic look and two thumbs up, whatever that means.

Well, not just Isobel. Greg is here, and Forrest, and some coworkers Alex turned Maria’s way to keep traffic up at the bar. But the space Michael left is vast and empty, and for all Alex didn’t ask him to come, it hurts a little like rejection would have hurt if he _had_ asked and Michael told him no or hated the song.

At least he can hope that Michael heard something of what he’s trying to say and will carry that with him, whatever happens next.

The song ends. His fingers stutter and linger over the keys; the spell shatters around him and the world rushes back in with applause. Forrest beams at him from the front row, and he smiles back a little awkwardly. Being so vulnerable so publicly…not really his thing. But maybe not all bad, not when it brings tears to his brother’s eyes and he kisses a man in the open, his father’s voice drowned out by ivories and drunkards and his own heartbeat echoing off his bones.

Forrest squeezes his hips and smiles up at him as the next person takes the stage and the night goes on around them. “I’m proud of you,” he says, just for the two of them to hear. “How do you feel?”

“I feel…good.”

He does. He does feel good, in a way that’s refreshingly distinct from the haze of _okay_ he’s been drifting in for weeks.

“Buy you a drink?” Forrest offers, raising his eyebrows, hooking his thumb back at the bar. Maria is still at home resting, so she isn’t there to support and/or lightly judge him.

“Uh…”

Say yes. He probably should, right? Just see what it’s like dating someone in the open. But would it be fair to use Forrest like that, as an experiment?

“…Can I take a rain check? This,” he gestures back at the stage, “Was kind of a lot for me, believe it or not, so I’m not in a chatty mood. Is that okay?”

Forrest’s smile doesn’t budge. “Okay, man, sure. See ya around.” And he heads to the bar alone.

Alex’s shoulders drop, feeling a little disappointed, feeling a little like he isn’t as disappointed as he should be. Hands in his pockets, he makes his way over to the door, only to stop short when he sees Kyle at a table in the back. Sheepishly, Kyle lifts his beer at him in a salute—but that isn’t an explanation, so Alex beelines for him anyway.

“I thought you hated this shit,” he says mildly, without preamble.

“Oh, I do. The second someone starts in on some amateur poetry, I’m out. But I was just being a dick earlier, and that’s not what I do these days so…”

“Apology accepted.” 

Alex glances around before sliding in across from Kyle. It’ll get awkward if Forrest sees him, but oh well.

“Hell of a performance,” Kyle says, going to flag down a waiter until Alex stops him.

“I’m not sticking around for long. But, uh, thanks.”

Kyle takes another long pull of his beer, and Alex raises an eyebrow at him.

He says, “You know, if I was so bad you have to drink to forget, you can just say so. My delicate feelings have been through worse, actually.”

“Ha! No, it’s…” Kyle trails off, staring at his beer instead of anywhere near Alex. “Eh. It’s part of the deal, but sometimes it still sucks to get slapped with reality. No matter how much you change, the people you’ve hurt don’t have to forgive you.”

“I…”

“No, don’t apologize. I get it. I was a big part of the reason you never would have sung that song in this town without the people that support you now. It’s okay that you still hesitate sometimes about me. Just, you know,” he shrugs with a small smile. “Sometimes I’m gonna drink about it.”

Alex leans across the table. “Kyle. You’re a good man. And my friend. Okay?”

Kyle’s shoulders drop an inch or so, and his face shifts with a more genuine, soft smile. “Okay.” Then he turns serious again, and continues, “But you know it’s going to be the same for Flint, right? First, that you can’t redeem someone who has no remorse—I had to make my own choice to be a better guy, to live by a better code, and no one could have done that for me. Second, that even if he does make that choice, the people he’s hurt have no obligation to forgive him. _Michael_ has no obligation to forgive him, and you can’t force him to. You have to make peace with that now, before you start down this road.”

“I know. But thank you, for the reminder.” Alex lets out a long breath. “I don’t know if I can forgive Flint. But he’s a part of my father’s legacy, too. I can’t undo all the harm, but if I can reduce any harm in the future, if I can even do that much…”

“I wish you luck. But, man, just...don’t try and bear too many other people’s sins, okay? You’re not responsible for what Flint does. You gotta look out for yourself, too, you know.”

“Thanks,” Alex says. What else is there to say? He might disagree with Kyle both on what makes someone _responsible_ and also the degree to which he’s already acting in his own self-interest. A truly selfless person would focus on what’s already within control in order to do the most good, not on trying to control everything they could. But if Alex doesn’t know how to live with himself and his choices at this point, he’s already lost. There’s a certain comfort and strength in that.

“Any time,” Kyle replies, saluting him again.

Alex leaves the table and leaves Kyle to it, making for the door and for fresh air. He’ll go home and have a beer there, maybe. Look at his keyboard and think of other songs to write, now that he’s gotten Michael’s song out of his skull.

Like all songs won’t be about Michael, somehow, always. 

That thought might have been depressing six months ago, six years ago, in the middle of all the missing they’ve done. But now Alex lets the nostalgia wash over him, welcomes it as an old friend. As a part of him, natural, not something that needs to be fixed or cut away. Every song is about Michael because Michael is a part of him. Nothing wrong with that, no matter how their relationship keeps changing, even if Alex never gets what he wants. He can live with that.

He steps out onto the Pony’s empty patio. Most likely everyone is either still inside watching other performers go on or has already left in disgust at the whole affair. The glow of the string bulbs softens the night, turns the bar into a welcoming place, an oasis of light, makes it hard to take that last step off the porch and into the parking lot. That’s probably the idea. Maria’s savvy like that. 

According to Max, Michael helped her hang these a few years back, and somehow he always comes up with replacement bulbs when they’re needed, always knows just what the fix is. It’s so easy to imagine him up on a ladder, deft hands weaving the cords around the wooden lattice, winding a perfect web, not too bright or harsh, just right. Alex sighs, and if it’s overly wistful, well, that’s a secret between him and the night.

“Everything okay?”

Alex jerks around at that voice. He’s heard it from nowhere before, but this probably isn’t one of those times, and sure enough, Michael lifts his head to give Alex a look of concern, head tilted to the side. That dramatic black hat, along with his dark clothes and curled-in posture, it makes him blend into the background, no matter how large he looms in Alex’s eye. He’s always been good at diminishing, at blending. Alex wishes he’d never had to learn to do that.

Alex forces his shoulders to lower, forces a smile to his face. “Yeah, you just startled me. Didn’t think anyone was out here, and, um, I thought you left. During the song.”

The silence stretches too long, too awkward as Michael rolls his shoulders in a shrug, does a familiar old nervous gesture of taking off his hat, running his hand through his hair, and settling his hat back down. Alex spent two weeks trying to find the chords right for that memory, the quiet yearning it awakes in him.

“Yeah, I—I don’t know,” Michael says. 

He doesn’t lean against the wall; he doesn’t fold his arms in front of him. He has nothing in his hands. Alex can’t remember the last time he saw him so without a shield, and it takes his breath away. 

Michael continues, “I know I wasn’t invited. I mean, uh, I think you didn’t mind seeing me too much, if I can read your face half as well now as I used to, but I wanted to respect that.”

“I didn’t! I didn’t mind.”

Silence falls again. Alex should say something more, should explain himself, shouldn’t let Michael walk away from this thinking he wasn’t wanted.

He blurts, “I thought about inviting you, but I—well, you heard the song, and with things with Maria still so recent and up in the air, I didn’t want to put you in a tough spot. I understand.”

Michael smiles at him, a look so soft Alex can hardly stand it. He licks his lips as if to check if he can still feel, still taste Forrest there, like that might be some sort of reminder that there are other things in life than Michael. He feels nothing, tastes nothing—but how much of the way Michael has always lingered on his skin and on his senses has been psychosomatic all along, because of how much he wished Michael would stay? No one could ever compare. It’s wrong of him to even try.

“You could have asked,” Michael says. “Let me know what it was about. I would have been here. I would have come. I’m happy—proud of you. For doing that, in there. I hope it was everything you wanted it to be. The moment you needed.”

“I don’t know. I honestly don’t. I want to say I was doing it for me, but...it’s hard to tell. Something else I’m working on.” Alex shrugs and puts his hands in his pockets just for something to do with them. “It...it definitely meant something, though. I’m happy.”

“Then I’m happy, too.” 

Alex shakes his head. “You don’t have to say that. You wanted so badly to be open with me, but I was never ready, and now that I am, it’s…” Too late. But he doesn’t say it, like filling the air with it might make it even more real than it already is.

“Alex. I lived in this town with your father for ten years. I got it. It hurt, and that hurt might have been screaming louder than the fear we both shared, but I did feel it too.”

The silence that follows has a hole in it where another apology might fit, but if they get started they’ll be here all night.

“Look, um,” Michael says, “Were you looking to get out of here or do you want to sit for a while? It’s a pretty nice night.”

What had previously been the truth—that the show had him feeling good but wanting privacy after willingly divesting it so dramatically—goes right up in smoke, and in its place is just the clean, simple desire to be in Michael’s company, close enough for their knees to brush under the small table, under the fairy lights, under the sky.

“I’m sorry,” Michael says. Alex sucks in a sharp breath.

He hadn’t expected the apology to actually reach the air. Hadn’t even wanted it to.

Alex has never liked apologies. What good is an apology? Greg used to apologize, sometimes, in hushed words when their father wasn’t listening. Flint and Clay never bothered, and Alex preferred it to empty words. Greg’s apology is easier to accept now, with the advantage of hindsight, coupled with action, but Alex doesn’t know how to react to Michael’s _sorry_.

Jesse Manes never apologized. Not for anything. And now he’s dead. Alex sits across from Michael. The slam of the Pony’s door as someone leaves, the slam of a car door as someone arrives, it all just sounds like hammers falling one after another.

How long did it take for Alex to stop flinching at the sound of military-issue boots approaching? At the shape a man’s shoulders made in uniform towering over him? At the snap and bark of a sergeant’s voice?

Michael’s shoulders are rounded. He always slouches so much.

Alex misses flinching, sometimes. He misses simple, unconditioned, _weak_ prey instincts, universal signals of the vulnerable, of the frightened, so someone capable of comforting him might know how badly he’s in need of comforting—

“Alex?”

Michael’s hand rests in the middle of the small table, bare, his palm upturned like it’s just waiting for the weight of Alex’s hand to settle on top of it. It’s his left hand. Over ten years and one hundred hoarded golden hours, Alex loved the way that hand touched him, like it was all of Michael contained in one small limb. Hurt and hopeful, with a necessary tender lightness, with a shape that sometimes made his throat ache to look at it. Some days he couldn’t use it at all. But he never hid, never tried to cover that part of himself to make Alex comfortable. Maybe that’s why Alex reacted so poorly to the bandana he wore these past months. He made the mistake for so long of thinking that a baring of scars was the same as a baring of souls, and then he learned he was wrong. And then Michael’s scars were gone…

But the hurt still lingered.

Alex puts his hand in Michael’s.

“What are you sorry for?”

“Hearing you sing in there…you’ve got me thinking about how much time we missed. The part I played in all that, pushing you away time and again. Not trusting you, not talking to you.”

“We were just kids.”

“I know. Still. Kids hurt each other all the time, and worse than adults do, most of it. And I’ve done my fair share of that, too.”

Oh, Michael. 

“The hurt kids do to each other, it’s not the same,” Alex says softly, as gently as he can muster. “I’m thirty years old. If I can’t look back and forgive the kids we were over the past ten years, what hope is there for me now?”

Michael shakes his head stubbornly. “I was old enough to know better. To _be_ better. To use my words instead of just lashing out when I was hurt. Maybe you don’t remember some of the shit I said, when we used to fight over you leaving, but I do. If we’re turning over a new leaf now, sayin’ sorry just feels like the right thing to do.”

He makes himself look so small. The table forces the barest necessary space between them, but not so little Alex can gracefully lean across it to press their foreheads together, or to rest his hand against Michael’s heart, no matter how much he wants to, no matter how tightly he presses their hands together to make up for it. He wants to feel that heartbeat, let Michael feel his own, match themselves to the same vital rhythm.

But this is about new leaves, like Michael said. So Alex takes a deep breath and lets the words stretch and burn and breathe between them, strengthening the muscles that he let grow so weak for so long.

“Michael. Listen to me. When you were seventeen, homeless, and vulnerable in ways I couldn’t even comprehend, you threw yourself onto my rich, homophobic, military father to protect me. That takes more courage and goodness than it takes to throw yourself on a _grenade._ Trust me, I know.”

“But—”

Alex leans in, the table biting into his stomach, close enough now to feel Michael’s breath on his cheek and smell rain off the collar of his shirt. “I refuse to blame us—to blame you—for the way it broke us afterward. Okay? No more keeping score. We have the pieces—we can, maybe we can work _together_ to put them back together. No matter what the final picture turns out to look like, even if it’s something completely different than we thought it would be at seventeen. Is that—would that be okay?”

Michael’s thumb passes over the back of Alex’s hand, a simple gesture that makes the hair stand up on his arms. All static, all electric. Alex aches, but it’s a good one.

“I don’t know if it’s too late for us. And you weren’t wrong when you said that things are still rough with Maria. It doesn’t even feel real that things could be over between me and her. And I saw the way Forrest Long looked at you.” Michael’s voice goes so soft Alex can hardly stand it. “If that’s something, you should let it be something.”

“I don’t know if it’s something. I don’t know if I want it to be.”

Alex’s words are distant even to his own ears.

Michael says, “That’s okay too. I’m just tired of pushing, tired of pulling. I want us both to be free, to, to just follow our hearts and see where we end up. I guess that’s my version of not keeping score. ‘Cause I know that you’re in here,” he puts his other hand over his heart, “No matter what our relationship is like. Fighting that just hurts us worse.”

Hope is such a painful thing. Michael told him that for years and years and Alex never quite believed him. But now that he’s asked to hold true to his own beliefs—that hope is necessary, that hope is a tool against yesterday, a compass pointed firmly in the direction of tomorrow—he wavers.

“It shouldn’t have had to be a fight,” he says. “You tried to tell me that you just needed space months ago, and I didn’t—couldn’t—didn’t want to listen. I wanted us to be okay; I thought if I atoned or whatever, we would be okay. But I wasn’t doing it for you. Digging for information, turning over every rock to find the ugliness underneath, that’s what I needed, not you.”

“But you were trying. I recognize that now, I do.”

“I—” Inches from arguing, Alex stops himself short. Patterns, it’s all patterns. They both have to get better at recognizing them, and that means Alex can’t do the same thing he’s told Michael is wrong, where he believes Michael’s assessment of him only when it suits the ugliest voices in his head.

So he says, “Yes. I was. I wanted to empower you the way I feel empowered when I have all the information at my fingertips, but I didn’t ask you what you needed.”

Michael leans forward. “And I should have told you outright that I needed space instead of trying to make you leave so it would make sense when you did—or just trying to hurt you for staying this time and not any other time when I really needed you to.”

Alex swallows hard and nods. He leans forward too. Michael’s hand is so, so warm in his. The two of them walk the same tightrope toward solid ground.

“I’m glad,” Michael says. “I’m glad that you stayed this time. You deserve to know that. I’ve been fighting to get free of the past; I know it’s unchangeable, but it’s always there, telling me all the ways I should have been better, and. Right now, in the present. Thank you. For being there this year.”

Michael smiles at him, a real smile, the kind of look Alex thought he might have imagined from across the bar, with music in his lungs. His eyes crinkle up, sparkling, face utterly transformed with what can only be utterly consuming fondness.

I love you. I love you. I love you. How could he not? How could he have ever convinced himself he was capable of stopping? Michael’s laughter is the joy of _knowing_ someone. Alex hasn’t felt so seen and so unafraid since he was seventeen years old.

Maria and Michael just broke up a few days ago, and it wasn’t mutual. There are so many leaps Alex wants to take now that he’s taken this one, to see how they feel, to reshape and reaffirm his comfort zone now that some of his ghosts have been put to rest. There are so many reasons to wait, to make sure that this time they can get this _right._

But what if Michael doesn’t know? Even at this stage down the long road of getting to know the man he loves, Alex knows how easily he doubts his own worth

He and Maria understand each other, as ever. He would give up his brain to see the future, too.

Michael’s face has gone soft and concerned the longer Alex hasn’t responded. Tingling spreads up Alex’s arm when Michael’s warm, rough hand tightens around his own, and the softness he feels helps unloosen his chest and let the words come out. 

“No, thank _you,_ ” he says, fitting his other hand around Michael’s knuckles so Michael’s healed hand is cradled between his.

That touch lingers for a long moment. For most of their lives, Alex hasn’t been able to read Michael’s face, has second-guessed what he thought each little flicker meant, has held back from acting on what he thought Michael was telling him, no matter how achingly open Michael’s face was. Now, though, Alex just has no idea what is going through Michael’s head as he watches their joined hands, Alex’s fingers against Michael’s bare skin, the bandana abandoned somewhere before Michael even came to the Pony tonight.

“Should we...should we talk about this?” Alex asks, letting his finger draw gently against Michael’s middle knuckle. Michael’s fingers flex in his grip.

“Don’t know what there is to talk about.”

“I don’t know.” Alex shifts and clears his throat. “Just...anything you want to say. Anything you’re feeling. Anything you want to say to me specifically.”

Michael glances around. They’re alone on the patio, but Alex understands. The silence of the night and the muffled clamor of the bar on the other side of the wall give the illusion the whole world is listening.

Then, bluntly, he says, “It hurt. What you said. That you so obviously didn’t understand I might have a hard time looking at it for personal reasons, since I never asked for it to be healed. I thought if anyone understood that, you would.”

Alex’s knee twinges in concert. He itches to rub it, but his hands stay still wrapped around Michael’s. 

Michael continues, “Hiding the healing had nothing to do with you, and if I was still pissed at your dad for causing it or at Max for healing it, that wasn’t really any of your business, either. That’s all.”

Deep breaths. Having all that out in the open is a clean thing, a necessary thing. Alex nods. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

Michael nods back and lets his shoulders drop. “But Max is the person I need to get into it with, not you. Then he was dead when I really needed to, so it got all twisted up and stuck inside of me, and I didn’t say anything to anyone. I don’t blame you for not being a mind reader and coming to some wrong conclusions.”

It’s that—it’s that that leaves Alex floundering for a moment, that instant of Michael seeing his guilt and cutting through it with a few words. He leaves a vacuum in its place and all of Alex’s other feelings, so carefully compartmentalized, have to rush to fill it in. Michael lets the silence linger, but Alex can feel the quickness of his heartbeat in the small of his wrist.

“What about you? Anything you want to say to me?” Michael says. “‘Cause we’ve fought before, but for some reason we keep coming back to the bunker. Feels like maybe there’s something there.”

“I…”

That...yeah. He was right. So many times, they’d fought. When they were kids and everything was falling apart. Over ten years, among the pieces. The argument they had in the bunker was practically a level-headed disagreement compared to the fight they had before Alex’s last deployment, the worst one, the one that cut them apart for almost two years without a word to each other. Even that one had scattered like mist under the morning sun when they were in each other’s arms again. 

And maybe that’s part of it. That their physical relationship has changed, that without the language of touch everything feels harsher and harder to forget. But the other reason lurks behind the walls in his mind.

He’s supposed to be better now. More peaceful, more understanding, more balanced. To preach forgiveness then lash out at Michael, the one person it’s always been safe to be angry with—it’s an ugly thing. Alex doesn’t want to hold it. Doesn’t want to be that. He’s supposed to be _better_ now. It doesn’t matter how often a therapist tells him progress isn’t a straight line. It shouldn’t matter. 

If he can fix this, make it like it never happened, maybe he can fix _them._

Alex doesn’t want to look that feeling in the eyes. Has avoided it, so far. And how to say it? He doesn’t even know if Michael _wants_ them fixed. Not the same way Alex does. And now’s not the time to ask that question. 

“I just want us to be okay,” he says. Simple. Weak. He hates the sound of pleading inside his own skull. He isn’t used to it. It’s just Michael. Michael won’t use it against him, won’t hurt him, he knows this, but inside something turns and hides and covers its head with its arms waiting for the blow. To buy it time, he babbles, “Not talking about it feels like hiding. All the times we let arguments go in the past—I want to do things differently, to actually _say_ I know what I did wrong and say that I know we, I, can do better, I don’t know, I just want things to be different, to change for good—”

“Okay.”

Michael’s voice is soft. So soft Alex wants to whimper.

“Okay, Alex,” he repeats. Now his other hand, hesitating just slightly, comes up to rest against Alex’s, so they’re holding onto each other as fast as they can with the distance and objects between them. 

That’s it? Just _okay?_

Michael shifts their hands, slides their fingers together slowly, and gives them a squeeze.

Oh.

Okay.

“Were you wanting to get out of here?” Michael asks suddenly, dipping his head slightly so his hat hides his eyes.

“No, um. Actually, I think I’ll stay a while. It’s a nice night.”

He’s exhausted, but nothing could tear him away. Not now. And it _is_ a nice night, clear and cool, the sky wide and velvet above them, in their little bubble of light.

“Cool,” Michael says. He leans back in his chair, though he leaves their hands connected, and he looks up at Alex again, eyes glimmering with a smile. “‘Cause I want to hear more about how you got into songwriting for real. You didn’t tell me about it when we hung out the other day.”

“A magician never reveals his secrets,” Alex replies, but his heart sings at the interest.

“Ok, sure, uh-huh. Well I’m going to go get us drinks, and when I get back maybe you can distract me and pull a rabbit out of a hat.”

“Between the two of us, you’re the one with the magic hands,” Alex says, only for his mouth to drop open when he realizes what he’s just said.

But Michael is already cackling, and the sound is so soothing to Alex’s soul he can’t interrupt, and he’s standing up to go inside, and it’s impossible not to notice how he doesn’t let their hands drop until the last possible moment, and then he’s sweeping his hat off his head with a dramatic bow and a cheeky smirk, and Alex can’t help but smile back at him.

He turns to head back into the Pony, and as Alex watches and mirrors the motion, he flexes his hands, rubs them together, then slides them into his pockets as if to hide the lingering feeling of touch for safekeeping.

And then Alex is alone, still smiling, knowing Michael will be back soon. 

**Author's Note:**

> check out bisexualalienblast on tumblr, the fantastic artist for this fic! hope you enjoyed! <3 <3
> 
> and thanks again to MaeglintheBold/May Glenn, lambourn, and christchex for the beta help!


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